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November 27, 2023
NOAA EXPERTS: LISTEN EARLY FOR WHALES BEFORE WIND PROJECT WORK
KIRK MOORE
* Northeast
* News
Guest Author:
SHARE
A right whale female named Fission by scientists with an unnamed juvenile male
whale is shown during an aerial survey over southern New England waters in March
2023. New England Aquarium photo/NOAA research permit #25739.
LISTEN
A study by scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
recommends at least 24 hours of acoustic monitoring for detecting endangered
North Atlantic right whales before construction work at offshore wind energy
construction sites, to reduce danger to the marine mammals from the loud
undersea noise of pile driving.
Visual monitoring around work sites – with trained observers on vessels watching
for whales – is one protocol with wind power companies and government
regulators. Another is passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) which uses sensors to
pick up and record whales’ vocalizations underwater.
Federal monitoring requirements now call for 1 hour of acoustic monitoring for
whale activity before pile driving for turbine foundations. It is an “intense,
impulsive noise that radiates into the surrounding environment as turbines are
hammered into the sea floor,” the paper notes.
The study by a team at NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center, published Nov.
3 in the ICES Journal of Marine Science, calls for pushing out acoustic
monitoring at least 24 hours ahead of construction schedules. Wind power
turbines are now being erected on the Vineyard Wind and South Fork project sites
off southern New England.
“Various effects on marine life have been observed from pile driving, ranging
from avoidance to behavioral changes in harbor porpoises to displacement and
physical injuries in fish,” the NOAA paper notes. “It is not yet known how pile
driving will affect each species that has not yet been exposed to it.”
The NOAA research team reviewed recordings of right whale “upcalls” picked up
from a network of underwater acoustic monitors off southern New England. The
upcall, a low-frequency whoop, is roughly like a human “hello there,” that right
whales use to communicate with other, said Genevieve Davis, a research
biologists and acoustics specialist at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center in
Woods Holes, Mass.
“They’re looking to see if other animals are around,” said Davis.
Davis and co-authors Sara Tennant and Sophie Van Parijs of NOAA’s Northeast
passive acoustics branch the found that the now required one-hour window for
listening for whale sounds will have only a 4 percent chance of hearing a right
whale nearby. But expanding that listening period to 18 hours raises to 74
percent the likelihood that whale calls will ping on passive monitors –giving
whale observers and construction crews more time to prepare and mitigate
undersea noise that can affect the whales.
The study draws on a three-year database of whale calls continuously recorded
from a network of six buoys off southern New England and archival recorders on
the bottom to capture whale sounds. “Right now, we have about 40 to 50 sound
traps along the coast,” said Davis. The resulting “baseline soundscape” is the
first compiled in relation to U.S. offshore wind development areas.
Whale calls can typically be detected at a distance of 10 kilometers (5.4
nautical miles). Ideally a passive acoustic listening network for detecting
whales around a project would be designed on a 20-kilometer grid to overlap
coverage, the researchers said.
A study by NOAA's passive acoustic monitoring team analyzed three years of
recorded North Atlantic right whale calls from southern New England waters,
between Nantucket Shoals and wind energy lease areas. Graphic from from Davis et
al 2023.
To reduce the loud noises of pile driving, developers are required to deploy
bubble curtains, streams of compressed air pumped around turbine foundations to
lessen the shock waves from hammering. Other noise sources are vessel traffic,
subsea site work like boulder removal, and turbine operation.
With fewer than 350 animals left in the North Atlantic right whale population,
the species is a top concern for marine mammal protections around wind power
installations. For all mammals NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service has set
levels for permitted “harassment” of animals from wind power operations; Level A
is the potential for physical impact or injury, while Level B is defined as
impact on animal behavior.
A series of mostly humpback whale strandings on New Jersey and New York beaches
last winter led wind project opponents to charge that offshore acoustic seafloor
surveys for the projects caused the whale deaths. Officials with NOAA and the
Bureau of Offshore Energy Management insisted there is no known link.
There is little direct guidance on that issue from the European experience with
offshore wind since the 1990s, in waters where harbor dolphins and porpoises are
the dominant marine mammals.
Off the U.S. East Coast “we have a wider diversity of species, particularly
these low-frequency (hearing) baleen whales” including humpbacks and right
whales, said Van Parijs. But generally the effect of man-made undersea noise on
whales is well-known, she said.
“There’s a large (scientific) literature on noise impacts. On cetaceans (whales,
dolphins and porpoises) and baleen whales, there’s been a lot of studies. The
noise criteria that NMFS develops in based on that, what we know about hearing
ranges and hearing impacts,” said Van Parijs. “That’s why there’s those
different levels for harassment.”
Vessels surveying offshore wind sites on the shallow East Coast continental
shelf use sonar and other equipment that operate sounds at much lower volume
than air guns used to probe for oil and gas deposits under deeper Gulf of Mexico
waters, said Van Parijs.
Wind developers halt pile-driving activity from January to April, a time of wild
North Atlantic weather and the peak period when right whales are on the move.
“We love this time of year, it’s when right whales are all over,” said Davis.
“We’re just entering that wintertime period when they start to appear all along
the coastline.”
“A longer monitoring period is clearly needed to provide ‘situational awareness’
in order to support a more robust mitigation approach” during turbine
construction, the team’s paper advises.
Acoustic data from southern New England waters “shows that the longer you
listen, the higher the likelihood of detecting an acoustically active” right
whale, the researchers found. Another factor is that right whales’ calling
behavior is lower and variable during the allowable pile-driving months of May
through December.
During those months, “monitoring for at least 24 hours prior to activity is
critical to increase the likelihood of detecting a North Atlantic right whale if
they are in the area and upcalling,” the researchers concluded.
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* Offshore Wind
KIRK MOORE
Associate Editor Kirk Moore was a reporter for the Asbury Park Press for more
than 30 years and a 25-year field editor for National Fisherman before
joining our Commercial Marine editorial staff in 2015. He wrote several
award-winning stories on marine, environmental, coastal and military issues that
helped drive federal and state government policy changes. Moore was awarded the
Online News Association 2011 Knight Award for Public Service for the “Barnegat
Bay Under Stress,” 2010 series that led to the New Jersey state government’s
restoration plan. He lives in West Creek, N.J.
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